Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: RandomTiger on August 20, 2002, 07:07:36 am
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:drevil:
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I was thinking about smoother gameplay, I have a 550mhz pc with 128mg SDram (though almost no L2ram) and mine slows down quite a bit after a couple of missions, especially on medium or high detail levels...so if theres a way to make this engine any more efficient (doubtful), then that would be the biggest help I think.
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Someone correct me if Im wrong but it looks like there are a lot of things that could be made more efficient. If you have a good gfx card moving the engine to DX8 would hopefully push more work onto the gfx card leaving more time free for the CPU.
EDIT: Who-ever voted for everything, that was king of pointless if you think about it.
EDIT 2: Any chance of making this a STICKY for a bit?
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
EDIT 2: Any chance of making this a STICKY for a bit?
First of all, give me one good reason why this isn't in the Source Code forum.
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The question is for modders because they will make use of these additions. I think you could argue for with post to be in either forum but I think it does more good here.
EDIT: Wow, this is almost exciting. First place seems to be set but second is anyones guess.
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Well, I want two things on that list:
- Better Dev tools
- More graphical effects
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I think Eternal One (Babylone Project) is working on optimising the gfx pipeline.... maybe you should talk to him about that aspect?
I think more sexp's is what'd benefit me most..... I want to do new stuff with my ships and their abilities, not just make them have more polys and some graphcial fanciness.....
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You've got a good point Aldo. I'd like to have everthing in the universe as an option of flying or piloting, BUT it's a downer if you can't utilize them to their full capabilities.
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- Unsticking this thread
- Moving this thread to the appropriete forum
those are just my thoughts on the issue.
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Originally posted by vadar_1
- Unsticking this thread
- Moving this thread to the appropriete forum
those are just my thoughts on the issue.
I can see why you think that but I disagree.
Sandwich has already challanged me on this. My response was:
"I may be wrong but there seems to be a bit of a gap between the programmers and the modders.
"As usual programmers ignore my postings" Fozzy, in the source code forum for example.
The post was one of a few things Im trying to do to lessen that gap. Also it was to get the post viewed by a large number of people.
With the exeption of graphical improvements, the most succesful model for making fs2_open successful is to implement the most popular wants from modders so they can actually use them and get the result to the players.
In short I wanted to ask *all* modders, not just the ones keeping their eye on our source code."
At the moment the poll is providing some interesting results. :)
EDIT: No one has voted in a while and the results are conclusive. Time to unsticky the poll I think.
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I'd like 3D explosions, rather than the cheap 2D animated fire that's currently in the game ;7
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I think it would be hard to make an true 3D expolison that looks that good and it would be so much more expensive. A better option might be to have more expolision animations so they look different.
Yet again, if it was to be done in 3D it would be best if it was done after an upgrade to DX8. Thats our big bottleneck.
I've always loved the explosion in FS. Perhaps some more debris would make up for it.
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Analysis:
The wants of the modding comunity fall into three categories:
Cateory 1: Very popular (19-20)
DX8 engine, higher limits and optimisation.
As far as the DX8 engine goes, this is a huge job that will require a lot of effort and teamwork from the coders. And will most likely have a long 'bug fixing' period. There are so many different combinations of gfx cards and OS and memory amounts that there are a lot of strange things that can go wrong.
Higher limits is not too tricky and Im not upto date on this but I think some limits have already been raised. However we have to be careful not to shut out those with low spec systems, checkout all the polls on specs.
Optimisaton is the solution to this. However, unless V have coded some important parts of the game badly the area best to target for optimisation is graphics. And if thats all changing over to DX8 when no-one really wants to write code before that which gets chucked out.
So basically we need to get at least D3D8 in anyway but it will take time. I think it will be well worth it.
Cateory 2: Mid range (11-8)
Mulitple docking: this would require changes to the engine and the tool the spefifies docking details.
More/better developement tools: need to know what you want really. Time for another poll? Perhaps someone who knows what they are talking about should do this. I know nothing of FS dev tools.
Some kind of nice easy mod plug in: It seems a logical want given the number of mods in production. I always liked the half-life system but I guess some research needs to be done.
More graphical effects: What do you want and are you willing to wait for the DX8 upgrade. I see some people are in favour of 3D effects but I wouldnt abandon 2D yet, its easier and cheaper and tends to look better as well.
Most of the ideas in this field need to be discussed and developed into detailed requirements before being done. It would be best if all jobs in particular field were to be rounded up into a small project. Then one programmer can do them all at once under one system. This way a general structure can be used to expand functionality for all jobs instead of a different way for each sub feature needed.
Cateory 3: No-one cares (1-3)
Physics changes and others. Not many people care for these options however if they were really small jobs they might actually get done if they are quick to get out the way.
Conclusion
So in conclusion many of these features are not detailled enough (in my ten choice poll, hardly a surprise) to be done from the info in here. It would be best if all similar jobs were done at the same time as part of a larger change. Perhaps someone could go between all the mods and find out this info, we coders could do it but then we wouldnt be coding eh? However anyone collecting such data would have to be patient for it actually by used because it seems everyone wants the same thing. The thing that is likely to keep the engine going, DX8.
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What I would like is more flags on the primary weapons; more variety in the guns than just colored blobs with different damage and fire rates. D3 primaries, for example, had 'pulse' weapons, short range beams, homing primaries, primaries with ammo, 2D effects... The same could be done with secondaries. Adding a few more 'features' would make the weapons more unique and balance them out a bit.
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Like partical trails. (hello source code people!!). 3D trails instead of bitmaps (hello again:D ) That kind of stuff founf in D3
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We're here. Particles should be addressed after the DX8 upgrade.
Help out if you like, join the test list.
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What I want is a better multi-play capabilities. PXO and the other game servers are fine, but I'd rather see an update. I truly like the idea of each system being capable of hosting as a server. Similar to JK2:Outcast, Wolfenstein, et al. Where there is one online "control" server that links all "personal" servers together. With more and more broadband users, this is the evolution of online gaming.
The other feature is improved peer to peer multi-play or IP to IP play, allowing direct gaming between players.:cool:
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I know nothing of multiplay code but I imagine that would be difficult.
But the real question is would such effort but justified, would anyone use it? The state of the squadwar forum suggests that multiplayer freespace isnt that popular.
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The ability to switch between 'dogfight' and Newtonian physics would be cool.
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
I know nothing of multiplay code but I imagine that would be difficult.
But the real question is would such effort but justified, would anyone use it? The state of the squadwar forum suggests that multiplayer freespace isnt that popular.
I think the reason for that is three fold.
1. Freespace came out before online multiplay really took off, and broadband connections made online gaming easier.
2. I logged into PXO (at the time) a few times and there weren't many players then. Most didn't know about or cared to paricipate in online play. We had a few servers to play on and the better ones required subscriptions.
3. The game isn't widely available anymore. Starcraft, Quake, and many others are still available, even as "Classic Game" Jewel cases. This helps to regenerate online play. Freespace has no such advantage. We may not be able to convice the publishers to resurrect the series for a Freespace 3, but we may be able to get them to re-release the games.
The most active online games these days are typically personal servers (home PCs) tied into one controller server which provides a routing service (no charge) to all the servers online.
Whether Freespace can be adapted to the current trend or even if the new online capability would be popular is up for debate.
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Originally posted by zinjo
What I want is a better multi-play capabilities. PXO and the other game servers are fine, but I'd rather see an update. I truly like the idea of each system being capable of hosting as a server. Similar to JK2:Outcast, Wolfenstein, et al. Where there is one online "control" server that links all "personal" servers together. With more and more broadband users, this is the evolution of online gaming.
The other feature is improved peer to peer multi-play or IP to IP play, allowing direct gaming between players.:cool:
Actually, this is how PXO works. It's essentially p2p, PXO just has the list of currently active games.
But PXO support is missing in the released source :( I've taken some steps towards getting a substitute, but we're not there yet...
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Originally posted by LtNarol
I was thinking about smoother gameplay, I have a 550mhz pc with 128mg SDram (though almost no L2ram) and mine slows down quite a bit after a couple of missions, especially on medium or high detail levels...so if theres a way to make this engine any more efficient (doubtful), then that would be the biggest help I think.
That's strange. I have a truly crappy video card (TNT2 Model 64), and it runs just fine with everything on high. What resolution are you using?
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The TNT2 is a great graphics card, mine served me well. Sure glad I didnt buy a crappy voodoo card like everyone said I should.
Anyway, what happened here? I thought this thread was dead!
The freespace engine isnt designed to take advantage of most of the cool stuff in the new 3D cards like hardware 3D trans and light so really a TNT2 is just fine. This will change when we get DX8 going.
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
More graphical effects: What do you want and are you willing to wait for the DX8 upgrade. I see some people are in favour of 3D effects but I wouldnt abandon 2D yet, its easier and cheaper and tends to look better as well.
what do I want: bump maps would be nice ( and a first for a space sim ), reflection maps would be cool( ala Iwar2 ), self illumination maps is A MUST DO, coz first it's so handy you can't even imagine, and second coz it should already have been done since it's already in the damn code ( FS in glide mode has that, and the entry is still in the tbl ).
would I wait for the DX8 upgrade: don't have much choice do I? still I think the self illu map should already be back, but anyway.
about an engine upgrade: do something about the Zbuffer, dunno, bring back the descent1 one :p
The Zbuffer sux, try any intersecting polys and you'll know why. Having a good Zbuffer would allow for models with less polys ( two intersecting boxes use much less polys than a box with two faces extruded/bevelled/extruded... ), so better performances, so more ships, faster on slow machines, and everybody would be happy. Voila.
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As a space sim its a perfect choice for bumpmapping, no ground or walls to worry about, just the ships and it will look great. If DX8 happens, bumpmapping WILL happen, the other things should be easy enough as well. Will need to get 'real' lighting in there first though
I know nothing about how freespace uses its Z buffer but I imagine its not making use of the new W buffer system that will most likely provide a better result on the cards that support it.
But as a general rule, avoid intersecting polys, there is no good, clean solution to that. Seriously, if you dont believe me look at the way the directX pipeline works with on card buffers and then look into polygon clipping. Owch!
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The main thing I would like is improved AI, followed closely by an optional newtonian physics system. ;) Any new graphics extras woulf also be great.
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
But as a general rule, avoid intersecting polys, there is no good, clean solution to that. Seriously, if you dont believe me look at the way the directX pipeline works with on card buffers and then look into polygon clipping. Owch!
I know nothig about programming, but the freespace engine comes from the descent one, wish used a lot of intersecting polys for the bots, and that really ease the polycount, believe me. for a more recent game, take Iwar2 for exemple :)
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Well, you program it and you can have what you want.
Otherwise I will use my own discression if I have to solve that problem.
It could always be refined later. Details like that are going to come second place to actually getting the new engine up and running.
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the thread title asks what I want, so I tell what I want :p
anyway, what I really want is just the self ilum colours back
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
It could always be refined later. Details like that are going to come second place to actually getting the new engine up and running.
However the DX8 upgrade will be happening on a different code branch so its unlikely you will be forced to use an the engine thats not everything you want it to be at that time.
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DX9 upgrade would be better... DX9 will come out after a month or two and there is already beta out. And no games support DX9 for two or so years. Though that must mean it isn't easy job to make DX9 engine.
DX8 (8.1 is better) isn't easy either, DaveB has said that.
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Additions I'd like to see:
First: a sexp to turn control of the player's fighter over to an ai that can follow orders given in sexps or departure settings. This will allow the player to exit a mission in a hangar or switch to autopilot (use in conjunction with the is-key-pressed sexp) and fly a set of waypoints.
Second, and more difficult; probably impossible at this stage: planar based shockwaves. By this i mean so that the shockwave animation is rendered on a set plain instead of always facing the player. This will allow the player to fly over the shockwave even though still getting hit with the blast but it would look a lot better than the shockwave always facing the player. Even better would be if the plain on which the shockwave(s) could be set in a pof editor, location and orientation.
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Originally posted by Redfang
DX9 upgrade would be better... DX9 will come out after a month or two and there is already beta out. And no games support DX9 for two or so years. Though that must mean it isn't easy job to make DX9 engine.
Hopefully DX9 will be more or less the same as DX8.
I certainly dont want to program with a beta, it might have bugs.
Your right though. I guess I should do some research into what changes DX9 offers / requires.
Originally posted by Redfang
DX8 (8.1 is better) isn't easy either, DaveB has said that.
Tell me about it!